Scorpius and Sagittarius highlight July nights, scooting low across the south. Antares highlights the scorpion’s hook-shaped body, with teapot-shaped Sagittarius to its left. Under dark skies, the Milky Way rises from the teapot’s spout like steam. Meanwhile, the Big Dipper stands high in the north and northwest during the evening, with its handle to the upper left and bowl to the lower right.
The full Moon of July is known as the Hay Moon, Thunder Moon, or Apollo Moon.
Perigee July 13
Apogee July 25
Moon phases are Central Time.
The Orion Nebula is 1,500 light-years away, yet it’s easily visible to the eye alone. It contains thousands of newborn stars. But it shines so brightly thanks mainly to just one star, Theta-1 Orionis C-1. It’s a member of class “O,” the most impressive class of stars in the galaxy.
The hottest and brightest stars in the galaxy are also the rarest. Known as class “O,” they account for about one of every 10 million stars. Yet they are so dazzling that several of them are visible to the unaided eye.
A pair of lions stands high overhead in mid-evening. Only one of the lions, the constellation Leo, deserves its name. The other, Leo Minor, is a scrawny patch of stars that is difficult to find. It stands to the north of Leo.
NGC 2467, a nebula in the constellation Puppis, is well to the left of Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky, and is visible through binoculars. It’s actually several stellar nurseries that line up in the same direction.
A legendary boat sails low across the south: the Argo, which carried Jason and the Argonauts on the quest for the golden fleece. It’s been split apart to make three constellations: Puppis, the stern; Vela, the sail; and Carina, the keel.
Camelopardalis, which represents a camel with the spots of a leopard, stands above W-shaped Cassiopeia in the northern sky at nightfall. You need skies that are dark enough to see the Milky Way to pick out the stick figure outlined by the camel’s stars.
The planet Mars is easy to find early tomorrow. It stands to the right of the Moon at first light, and looks like a bright orange star. The planet Saturn is close to the upper right of Mars, completing a beautiful display in the dawn sky.
The night will get brighter after about 2 or 3 a.m. tomorrow, as the gibbous Moon climbs into view. Saturn, the second-largest planet in the solar system, stands just below the Moon as they rise, with slightly brighter Mars farther along the same line.
The subtle band of the Milky Way arcs low across the west this evening. It sweeps from Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky, in the southwest, through Orion, and over to W-shaped Cassiopeia low in the northwest.
The V-shaped face of the bull stands about a third of the way up the western sky at nightfall. Bright Aldebaran marks the bull’s eye. But the rest of the face is outlined by the Hyades, which is closer than any other star cluster, at about 150 light-years.
